(Bloomberg) -- Google’s partnership with AI firm Anthropic is at risk of being derailed in the UK after the competition watchdog called for further investigation into the pact’s potential impact.
The Competition and Markets Authority said Thursday it’s opening a formal phase one merger probe, in the latest sign that regulators are taking closer order of the wave of investment into startup AI firms.
Alphabet Inc.’s Google pledged to invest $2 billion into the artificial intelligence startup last year. Prior to the financing, Google also signed a major cloud agreement with Anthropic.
The CMA has been at the forefront of global regulator attempts to ensure that big tech investment into the AI industry doesn’t distort the market and allow a handful of all-powerful firms to dominate. The US Federal Trade Commission and European Union are also investigating various partnerships.
Microsoft Corp.’s investment into its OpenAI pact is also potentially facing a UK probe, while Amazon.com Inc’s $4 billion investment into Anthropic was cleared in September. In its Amazon probe, the CMA found that Anthropic’s local revenue did not meet threshold limits or have a large enough share of supply in the country to warrant intervention. Separately, it quickly open and closed probes into Microsoft’s Mistral and Inflection deals.
The CMA set a Dec. 19 deadline to decide whether to escalate to a more serious in-depth study. A Google spokesperson said in a statement that Anthropic is free to use multiple cloud providers and it does not demand exclusive tech rights.
“We intend to cooperate with the CMA and provide them with the complete picture about Google’s investment and our commercial collaboration,” an Anthropic spokesperson said.
(Updates with a statement from Google and Anthropic in the final paragraphs)
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